


The Fourth, the Fifth, the Minor Fall, the Major Lift

by missgoalie75



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2012-08-27
Packaged: 2017-11-13 01:23:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missgoalie75/pseuds/missgoalie75
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It goes like this… | Claire Novak's life before, during, and after Castiel's possession of her father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fourth, the Fifth, the Minor Fall, the Major Lift

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers/Warnings: through 5x22; AU after S5, brief substance abuse, thoughts of suicide, language, not being totally and completely accurate in university offerings.
> 
> Title is a lyric from "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen.
> 
> A huge thank you to Beth and Ashley for looking over this for me, and to everyone else for being amazing supporters while I was writing it.

**i. only just the start.**

Claire Alexandra Novak is born on May 3rd, 1998 at 5:50 a.m. Central Daylight Time in OSF Saint James – John W. Albrecht Medical Center in Pontiac, Illinois.

Apparently there are a few notable things about her birth that she learns about over the years.

The first is the date: May 3rd is also know as St. James The Just's Feast Day in the Roman Catholic Church. So being born in a hospital of his name on his name day is a blessing, according to her father.

The second is the time: 5:50 a.m. is the exact time when the sun rose that morning. Apparently that's a blessing also – that the rising sun brought her into this world.

Claire has just always liked that her birthday is in the spring and that the sun usually shines, the trees are green, and the flowers have started to bloom.

**

She's baptized in the beginning of September, their family friends Carl and Sally named godfather and godmother. She looks at photos taken before and after the ceremony and grimaces at the white, lacy dress that they had her wear ("Uncanny how you wore that _exact_ facial expression while we were putting that on you," her mother would tut in fondness).

But she likes these pictures because her parents look so _happy_ , taking turns in holding her, never looking prouder.

She hopes she can live up to that.

**

They have grace before dinner every night, her father saying the same words:

_Bless this food, O Lord, and ourselves to thy loving service, that we may always continue in thy faith and fear to the honor and glory of thy name. Amen._

__Claire doesn't stop herself from asking questions most of the time, but she never asks what it all means; it doesn't seem right to do so.

**

At age four she's enrolled in a ballet class, and at the end of every class, she gets a small square of stickers that she keeps in a small box under her bed.

When her father asks her why she never uses any of them, she says she's waiting for something special.

**

At one point she asks about getting a little sister – she thinks she'd be a really great big sister. But when she asks, her mother bursts into tears and leaves the room.

It's the first time she sees her mother cry. At least the first time she can remember.

Her father sighs, lines visible on the corners of his eyes and in the frown of his mouth.

"Why are you both sad?" Claire asks quietly.

Her father lifts his head and tries to smile, but it looks painful on his face. "We can't have another child, baby, I'm sorry."

"Can we not afford one? I have a lot of coins in my piggy bank and you don't have to pay me back."

He laughs, but he cries a little too. She doesn't know how that's possible – to be happy and sad at the same time. "It's more complicated than that, Claire, but we should think of it as God not wanting us to have another child."

"Well that's stupid – isn't He supposed to make you happy?"

Her father just brings her into a tight hug. "You'll learn that God works in mysterious ways and they may not seem clear to you, but we must keep faith."

It's also the first time she questions God.

**

She starts going to CCD at age six and she gets a workbook and has assignments to do when she gets home and she feels like a big kid.

"What does 'CCD' mean?" Claire asks, confused. 

"It stands for 'Confraternity of Christian Doctrine,'" her father explains, pulling her onto his lap even though she's getting a little too big for it. "It's also known as 'Catechism,' but we shorten it to 'CCD.' You're going to go once a week after kindergarten to learn about Christianity."

"Does everyone do it?"

He chuckles, placing a kiss on her head. "No, not everyone is Christian, but most Christians do."

She looks into his blue eyes, always so bright, and nods. "Okay."

His smile is big as he says, "You're going to love it."

Her mother tries to help her with the work, but leaves the hard stuff for her father, who knows as much as the deacon knows, Claire is sure of it.

She doesn't mind it – she likes learning about God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit (who are all apparently the same, but that's too hard to think about) and her friends Susie and Daniel are in her class and they sit next to each other.

**

As much as she loves her parents, sometimes she wishes they weren't hers. She doesn't like how her friends at school are allowed to watch things that she knows without a doubt her parents won't let her do and they stay up later than she does, even if it's only by a half hour or an hour more.

"We do it because we love you and this is what we know is best for you," her father says with his hands on her shoulders. She's pouting and won't look at him. "We just want you to be a kid for as long as you can – you'll have plenty of time for all those things when you're older."

She still doesn't like it.

**

On Sunday afternoons, her father takes her out for ice cream. She gets soft-served chocolate with those chocolate crunchies she loves and he gets soft-serve with rainbow sprinkles, at her insistence.

After she finishes eating the top of her ice cream, her father teaches her to bite the bottom of the cone and to suck the rest of the ice cream out of it. When he mother finds out about it, she shakes her head and gives her father a look that makes him laugh.

Sundays are special to her for that, not because of Sunday morning mass.

**

The Eagles is her father's guilty pleasure.

He's not very passionate about music – the Novaks aren't in general, really – but he _loves_ The Eagles.

He plays them while paying bills, while he cooks, while putting her to sleep – "Desperado" and "Wasted Time" become lullabies and when he ventures to FM radio in the car and The Eagles are on the classic rock station, he smiles widely and increases the volume a little more than necessary.

(She'll end up regretting not asking about his childhood because what was Jimmy Novak like at her age? At sixteen? At twenty-three? Did he blast music when he first learned how to drive? Did he stay up later than he was supposed to just to watch his favorite movie on TV?)

His favorite song is "Ol' 55," which she never quite got since _On the Border_ was never her favorite album by them ( _One of These Nights_ is her favorite).

"Why do you like it so much?" she asks him once while they're on their way home from Sunday morning mass. She asks if it's because the singer is singing about God, which makes her father laugh.

"No, baby, I just," he starts, shrugging a little as he stops to think. "It's actually a cover, you know. A singer named Tom Waits originally sung it. And he's stated what the song's about, but. What I get out of it is living your life – leaving behind a period of your life you don't really want to end, but you continue on and start new, which can be equally as exciting as it is terrifying and sad."

She lets his words sink in, even though she doesn't really get it. 

He laughs again, this time it's softer and she can see his blue eyes crinkle a little in the rearview mirror, smiling in a way that's solely meant for her. "When you're older you'll get it."

Usually she doesn't like it when adults say that, but she doesn't mind when her father does.

**

(She doesn't tell her parents this, but she prays every night. She's a little embarrassed because it's all simple things: world peace, her parents', her grandparents', and her friends' health. They're short and end with _amen_ , making her feel like she's close to God somehow.)

**

She's nine going on ten when she gives her father a Father's Day gift paid with her own money (well, she paid for a bit of it – her mother had to cover the rest). She went to the mall with her mother and she got to pick out a tie for him and she couldn't wait to give it to him, so she gives it to him on Saturday night.

"Claire," her mother sighs, but she's smiling.

"Happy Early Father's Day, Daddy. Open it, open it!"

Her father grins and says, "All right," ripping off the wrapping paper with care and patience that Claire will never have when it comes to gifts. 

When he finally pulls the tie out, she says, "I picked it out myself. I thought it would match your eyes."

Well, the coloring of the tie is a much darker blue than his eyes, but it's okay.

"I love it, thank you, Claire," he tells her, pulling her in for a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Looks like I have a new favorite tie."

After he starts wearing it, he'll claim it's his lucky tie.

**

**ii. the beginning is the end is the beginning.**

Claire first hears the name 'Castiel' while she's walking down the stairs to ask when dinner will be ready. 

Her parents are speaking in hushed whispers and she doesn't catch much.

( _" – Maybe we should take – doctor – boiling water –"_ )

( _"– Fine – Castiel said – okay –"_ )

She wants to listen in more, but she accidentally steps on the creaky part of the fifth step, and her parents stop talking.

**

While doing her homework on the family desktop computer, she searches 'Castiel' when her parents aren't in the room.

_Castiel (angel), the Angel of Thursday in the occult lore._

_Castiel, Switzerland, a Swiss municipality._

_Castiel, literally meaning "my cover is God" in Theophory in the Bible._

__…Surely her father wasn't talking about an area of Switzerland.

She leaves the page and goes back to her homework because she's just going to let her imagination get the best of her and he must've been referring to a friend of his, someone she doesn't know.

**

She sees her father once, talking to the old radio in the basement that hasn't worked for as long as she can remember, but is now lit up, the plug dangling loose on the floor.

She can't hear what he's saying and she can't hear what noise is coming out of the radio, even though she knows it's _speaking_ to him.

She slowly backs away, silent, wanting to forget she saw it.

(She doesn't.)

**

Her parents don't really talk to each other anymore.

Dinner is stilted and awkward and every time she hopes that after they say grace, holding hands in a circle with eyes closed, they'll open their eyes and things will magically go back to normal.

They never do and it turns every first taste of food into something dry and terrible like the body of Christ when receiving Communion during mass.

(Do they ever think to change the flavor? Shouldn't the body of Christ be sweet and good?)

**

He still takes her out for ice cream, but they don't talk the way they used to.

She wants to ask him about Castiel, who he (or she?) is and it's okay if he tells her – she won't tell a soul. But she's still too scared to ask.

She bites the bottom of the cone and sucks the ice cream out and he doesn't even smile, nearly making her cry.

(She does end up crying on the way home, for once glad that her parents still won't let her sit in the front seat.)

**

One Friday night when he comes back from work, she runs into him like she did when she was young and mutters into his shirt, "I miss you."

She can hear him exhale and drop his briefcase before folding his arms around her, tight to the point of almost not being able to breathe, but she doesn't mind.

"I'm sorry, baby," he says into her hair.

She just wants things to go back to _normal_.

(That night she takes a square of stickers given to her on Valentine's Day – it has different heart stickers and one cupid. She takes the biggest red heart of the square and sneaks it into his wallet that he always keeps on his nightstand after coming home from work.)

**

Her parents only have one fight that's loud enough for her to vaguely hear through her bedroom door and it scares her so much that she pretends to be asleep, even when she hears her mother knocking on her bedroom door ten minutes later.

**

( _Please God, let my parents stop fighting._ )

**

"…So then why is it so hard for you to believe that they're talking to me?"

Claire can't breathe. Her blood is pounding in her ears, incapable of hearing anything else that her parents are whispering about because – 

Her mother comes up the stairs and Claire rushes back to her room, dizzy and confused and scared.

**

There's a light coming from the front porch, blinding like the sun, and what if Castiel – the _angel_ – is taking her father away or –?

**

"Daddy – " Claire starts, but as soon as he turns around, she knows – she just _knows_ it's not him. It's _him_ – his face, his clothes, his body – but. The way he looks at her and the way it feels like she's standing a few feet away from a storm, causing the hair on the back of her neck to stand on end.

And after the longest few seconds of her life, he says in a voice so unlike her father's – deep, raspy, powerful, "I am not your father."

She watches him walk away with her breath lodged in her throat because it's _Castiel_ , the angel her parents won't stop whispering about when they think she's not listening, the angel who really did just take her father away with a bright light.

She doesn't move from the front porch until her mother calls her back inside.

**

**iii. i wonder what you're doing (i wonder if you doubt it).**

Her mother asks her questions. The police ask her questions. Everyone asks her questions.

 _You were the last one to see your dad – did he do anything weird? Say anything? This could help find him_.

She wants him to be found, she really does, but how can she possibly explain that it's not her dad anymore? That Castiel somehow took over her father and is now doing God-knows-what?

She wants to comfort her mother, who won't stop crying even though she pretends she isn't when around her and Claire knows one mention of Castiel will break her.

So she keeps it to herself.

_No, I opened the front door, walked outside, and saw him walking away. That's it._

**

She reads her copy of the Bible she received for her first Communion from front to back, finding no mention of Castiel. 

**

For the first two weeks after her father's disappearance, they miss mass, but on the third week, Claire asks her mother if they'll be going to mass on Sunday morning.

"I wasn't planning on it, no," her mother says, eyes tired and puffy from crying all throughout the night.

"Okay."

**

At school she reads the Torah translated online, and finds no mention of Castiel. 

**

People at school treat her weirdly now. Like they're afraid she's going to lash out. Sometimes she thinks she should, but there's a strange calm in her, like it's not necessary to do so because her father isn't dead.

(Even if her mother and the rest of the town seem to think so with every passing day and no word from him.)

**

She has a little bit of luck reading on Kabbalah, which mentions an angel named 'Cassiel,' but she doesn't know if this is right, or if maybe the Castiel she's looking for just isn't as important of an angel as Michael or Gabriel or Raphael.

She slams the book shut, pleased at the loud noise it makes and the way everyone freezes.

**

Five minutes before her CCD class is about to start, Claire asks her mother if Susie's mom is going to be picking her up.

Her mother, busy cutting up vegetables for dinner, doesn't look up as she answers, "I pulled you out of CCD, Claire. You're not going anymore." She looks up for a moment to smile at her. "You're free to watch TV, if you want."

Claire winces a little, knowing that her father wouldn't really be happy about that, but can't deny that at least she won't be bored out of her mind anymore. After scouring the Bible for over a month, she's become somewhat of an expert, much to her teacher's bafflement and faint annoyance.

"If I'm not going to CCD anymore…can I still go to mass on the weekends?" Claire asks quietly.

Her mother stops cutting and looks ahead into nothing, taking deep breaths. "Why do you want to go to church?" she finally asks after a minute, not unkindly, but in a way that makes Claire think about how to word this properly.

"It makes me feel safe. Praying. Singing the same hymns. I pray for Daddy and it makes me feel better."

She watches her mother's face crumble and thinks she's going to cry, but she pulls herself together a few seconds later, her face even. "I can work out something with Roger's family about taking you to mass. They usually go to the five o'clock Saturday mass," her mother tells Claire, back to cutting vegetables.

"Thank you," Claire sighs, coming up to her mother and hugging her from the side.

**

Saturday afternoon mass is not the same as Sunday mass. It's shorter, people dress more casually, and everyone just seems to have this itch to get it over with, which she hates.

Most of her classmates from CCD are scattered around, looking bored.

Even Roger and Lisa keep checking their watches every five minutes.

And her former CCD teacher is there, almost glaring at her from across the church and it makes Claire so _angry_ – it's not her fault, and just because she's not attending CCD anymore doesn't mean she's less of a Christian. The fact that her former CCD teacher is trying to make her feel like she's not _welcome_ is enough to make clench her hands into fists.

When mass is over, she uncurls her hands to find her nails and palms bloody.

She doesn't tell her mother that she hates it because she knows it's already too much that she's going at all.

**

"Claire – can you come into the dining room for a minute?"

Claire turns off the TV with a quiet sigh, pushing herself up from the couch to walk into the dining room where her mother is sitting, still wearing a nice skirt and top with heels, having just gotten back from 'Back to School Night.'

"Honey, your teachers are worried about you – you've stopped speaking in class," her mother tells her, leaving her hands on the table for Claire to take, which she does.

"I just don't have anything to say," Claire answers, not intended to sound like a 'smart-alec,' as her father would say, but her mother still gives her a sharp look.

"Claire."

"I'm still paying attention, I swear," Claire says, squeezing her mother's hands.

"I know you are, but." Her mother sighs. "Maybe you should see a counselor," she mutters under her breath.

Claire doesn't want to, she opens her mouth to argue with her, but after a moment, she can't do it. She can't cause her mother any more grief than she's already dealing with.

(She's overheard her talking with her grandmother on the phone the other day about having a memorial service for her father.)

Claire lowers her eyes in consent.

**

After that, she forcers herself to open her mouth in class. 

**

Even though she knows she won't find anything useful about Castiel through reading various religious texts, she still does it anyway – she finds it fascinating. 

**

Christmas is hard and they don't watch _Miracle on 34th Street_ like they always did. Instead Claire opens the small amount of gifts she received (she didn't know that her mother was struggling financially until that moment) and they order in Chinese food for dinner.

"My friend Ali Greenberg does this every Christmas – I thought it was a Jewish tradition," Claire wonders out loud as she twirls lo mein on her fork. She doesn't know how to use chopsticks.

"I thought we'd do something different. Maybe next year we'll order Italian," her mother answers with an overly chipper smile.

Claire forces herself to eat even though the idea of not celebrating another Christmas with her father makes her sick.

At night her mother doesn't seem to try to hold back her crying – Claire can hear her sobs from across the hall and she has to stifle her mouth with a pillow to muffle her own.

**

She still prays every night. She feels badly about forgetting about people sometimes, but she's consistent about her father:

_Please God, watch over my father. He has so much faith in you, don't make it all in vain.  
_

**

Meetings with her guidance counselor are awkward and despite his best intentions, he doesn't get much out of her.

She wishes she could talk to someone about this – about angels existing and maybe, just maybe other things existing too – but how can she without sounding like a crazy person?

**

One night, she stares up at her bedroom ceiling and wonders in horror if her father _chose_ all this.

But the possibility upsets her so much that she tries to push it out of her head because she can't imagine his agreeing to have an angel take over him and leave his family broken for months.

The one-year anniversary is coming up and she doesn't want to lose hope.

( _These things that are pleasin' you can hurt you somehow._ )

**

Some time during the winter – around January or February – "Desperado" comes on the radio and usually her mother immediately changes the station when The Eagles come on, but this time she keeps it on, her knuckles on the steering wheel bone-white.

_Desperado, why don't you come to your senses? You been out ridin' fences for so long now…_

__Claire tenses, wondering why her mother is doing this because it just _hurts_ and she hasn't realized how much it would and wants to thank her mother, in a way, for trying to shield her from that. At least until now.

_Don't your feet get cold in the wintertime? The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine…_

And she just gets this horrible mental image of her father wandering around in this freezing weather with no shoes and she _loses it_ – she doesn't mean to, but she starts sobbing in the backseat and she can't seem to stop.

She assumes her mother pulls over to the side of the road and her mother is coming into the backseat, pulling her in for a fierce hug. "I'm sorry, I'm _so_ sorry," her mother repeats over and over, her tears mixing with Claire's.

They stay like that for at least two songs, one of which is "Stairway to Heaven," the longest song ever, she thinks.

**

**iv. just a chance that maybe we'll find better days.**

She can recognize her father's voice in a crowd – she's done it before when she was five and lost her parents and could pick out her father calling out to her – she knows it's him at the door.

 _Actually_ him.

She should be running out of her chair and into his arms, but she's sort of scared at the same time – she hasn't seen him in almost a _year_. Does he look different? Is he still the same person?

She thinks about it too long because her mother shuts the door and orders her to go upstairs to her room and to not come out until she says so.

**

She doesn't follow her mother's order after ten minutes and silently makes her way down the stairs, her hand sliding down the banister.

But she didn't account for her mother to have a direct view of the staircase and it goes to show how much her mother really knows her as she tells her to go upstairs.

She makes sure to stomp, even though it makes her seem like a petulant child.

**

"Claire," her mother says, knocking on Claire's bedroom door.

"I know Daddy's downstairs," Claire interrupts her. "And I want to see him."

Her mother purses her lips before sighing, her shoulders slumping for a brief moment. "I know. We're going to have dinner right now, so wash your hands before coming down."

Usually Claire sings the "Happy Birthday" song in her head as she washes her hands, like her teachers have always told her, but this time she sticks her hands under the sink for two seconds before drying them on her pants, rushing down the stairs.

**

She missed being hugged by her father. She misses the warmth of his chest, bleeding through his shirt under her cheek and the way she feels safe in his arms, like nothing can hurt her.

(She hopes that he missed her hugs too.)

**

There he goes again – looking happy and sad at the same time.

This time she thinks she understands a little more.

(Although she's a little sad about not saying grace because she wants an excuse to hold his hand, even if it's just for a little bit. Although she's not sure how she was going to let go.)

**

**praeludium (i)**

For the first time in this madness that has been her father and Castiel and disappearing and angels, she doubts.

(When the cool knife presses up against her neck, she almost sighs in relief; it's all real.)

**

She doesn't realize she's shaking until her mother drapes her father's trench coat over her shoulders in the back of the Winchesters' car.

The ride is silent and tense and she wants to know who these men are – Dean and Sam Winchester – and how they know her father, if they know Castiel. She wants to know what they know.

Her father seems to sense her curiosity because he explains that they were familiar with Castiel and were going to keep them safe. It doesn't satisfy her nearly enough, but her mother pulls her close to her and says, "Sleep."

She does, even though she doesn't want to.

(She hates that she's a deep sleeper too, so she misses whatever may have happened until she's shaken awake.)

**

"Take care of your mom, okay, bub?"

She tries so hard not to cry, feeling like a melon is lodged in her throat as she nods, her forehead pressed against his and she doesn't want him to leave – she doesn't understand why he can't stay, why when she just got him back, he has to _leave_ them again.

"Why is he leaving?" she asks her mother. It's not _fair._

The slap on the face and the flash of black eyes is enough to make her stop thinking.

Although the blow to the head also does the trick.

**

**intermedium.**

There's a gunshot and her mind is awash in pure light.

There's a strange voice whispering and she doesn't understand much – just her name, her family, vessel, and permission.

She gives it and it's like swallowing the sun.

**

It's like hurtling through space and time, experiencing everything and nothing at once, sharp edges and motherly caresses on the cheek. She loses herself for hours, days, weeks at a time, coming to for a few seconds, even though that's not possible, it can only be a minute, maybe two.

It's Hell and Heaven and Earth and Sky and Ocean and the Smallest Atom and the Largest Universe.

**

Castiel walks (slowly, much too slowly) out of her chest in a narrow, white, bright hallway towards her father, who stands pale and bloody on the other end.

She tries screaming "Daddy!" and "I love you," to him, but her mind is pierced and slashed and she's speaking tongues she doesn't understand, doesn't even know existed, but he seems to understand and says them back.

As she watches Castiel stride inside her father, he's engulfed with light and then she opens her eyes, dropping to the dirty floor trying to catch her breath, shaking and unable to look at the angel who rises in her father's bones and flesh.

**

**v. yesterday i died (tomorrow's bleeding).**

The next few days are a blur for her. Every time she opens her eyes for more than ten minutes, she gets tunnel vision and sees splotches of colors before passing out.

She thinks Dean carries her to and from the car and back to her house.

Before she passes out again, she sees the floor is clean and the bodies are gone.

**

"I'm so sorry," she hears Dean whisper before leaving her room.

She's out again.

**

She wakes up to the sun shining through her bedroom window, birds chirping and immediately she feels soreness inside her chest, like a thousand stinging papercuts are throbbing at once and her head aches.

Her mother is sleeping in her old rocking chair in the corner.

Claire closes her eyes and tries to breathe evenly, hoping that it's just a temporary side effect.

**

It's not. 

**

Claire is pulled out of school for the week, her mother planning a funeral for her father, ordering a gravestone and all. Her parents have spaces in a cemetery an hour or so away from Pontiac, where her father's parents are buried.

"Do I have a space there?" Claire inquires as they shop for a black dress for her to wear.

"Yes, but you're not going there until you're very, very old," her mother answers firmly, as if it would be enough to convince God.

To be honest, Claire doubts that God has any say in Death.

**

She hasn't heard her mother cry once – she wonders if her mother has already cried every tear over the past year. 

**

The funeral is short and there aren't many people – just her, her mother, her grandmother, and a few close friends from town. She thinks the elderly priest did a nice job, although this is the first funeral she can remember attending.

"May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace."

Claire looks up at the sky and hopes and prays and pleads.

**

Claire wakes up, brushes her teeth, takes the bus to school, goes to homeroom, says the Pledge of Allegiance, goes to French class, and is fluent a minute into her teacher's speech about when she did over the weekend.

She always considered herself to be somewhat adept at French, but now she's understanding every single word that comes out of her teacher's mouth and she _knows_ her teacher likes to sprinkle new vocabulary for them to learn each class.

When the teacher calls her out on not paying attention, Claire surprises herself by apologizing and explaining herself without a single stammer, using verbs and terms she didn't know a week ago.

Her teacher just stares blankly back at her and the rest of the class gapes.

She tries not to slouch down her seat to hide under her desk.

**

Curious, she goes to the library after eating a quick lunch and tries to find a French booklet that eighth graders use.

It's like completing something in English.

**

Her mother finds out about this at the end of the week, when her French teacher calls her mother to inform that Claire has become a French prodigy in a week.

Claire _hates_ the way her mother looks at her then, like she has a hideous scar on her face. (She knows it's not a well-placed bump in the head that gave her this ability – it's too _angelic_.)

Her chest aches more than usual.

(It never goes _away._ )

**

Claire finishes out the year, getting a perfect score on her French final and a note from her teacher for her mother, informing her she can't take French any longer – that she'll have to take Spanish in middle school.

She shrugs – she supposes the language is useful.

(Her mother still looks at her like she's not her daughter and doesn't she realize that it _hurts_?)

**

Something shifts in the atmosphere and she wakes up in a cold sweat, panting and scared and there's something _here_ – out there, but _here_ – that shouldn't be and it's evil.

She cuddles with a teddy bear and looks between the window and her door, hoping it won't come to her.

**

**intermissiō.**

Summer involves her mother trying to find jobs, unable to afford Claire going to any sort of camp, and Claire reading on angel-lore.

Nothing helps and she still carries around an emptiness in her chest that's hard to put to words because 'empty' hints at the possibility of being filled.

She doesn't think it can be.

**

One stormy summer day, she discovers that her birthday is also the feast day for St. Philip the Apostle – the patron saint of pastry chefs.

She wonders if her father knew about that.

**

One day in the mall she spots at least three people with black eyes, but she doesn't say a word to her mother and keeps her head down.

**

She prays twice a day because angels and demons are warring around her and she can only hope that her father isn't suffering any more for angels' agendas.

**

**vi. looking for heaven (found the devil in me).**

Seventh grade is when she loses some friends – the ones that will no doubt be popular in high school – but she doesn't mind too much. She knows they whisper behind her back and call her a freak.

She just insults them in French to their faces and they stare back without a thing to say.

(What would her father say?)

As for Spanish – after the first class, she knows everything, but she pretends not to because she can't do this to her mother again.

**

Life goes on: she prays every night before she goes to sleep, she does her work and goes to school, she goes to church.

Even when her mother starts making enough money to enroll her in dance once more, she never enrolls her in CCD again. She's afraid to ask her mother if she'll ever go to church.

(Sometimes Claire wonders why _she_ still does – is it habit? Is it comfort? Does she still believe in God? And not so much that He exists, but that He cares and loves us all, as it's written in the Bible and preached in mass?)

**

Her mother can't afford the house and they sell it, move into a two-bedroom condo closer to the center town.

(During the move Claire tries to sneak out some of her father's clothes, but her mother gives it all to Goodwill. (Although she does manage to keep his old favorite tie.))

**

She decides to enroll in a karate class, even though she's the oldest person with a white belt by at least six or seven years.

She wants to be able to defend herself in case there is a next time.

**

Eventually in eighth grade, out of pure frustration, she stops holding herself back and outsmarts her teacher, who really was an idiot.

She ends up getting a B in the class even though she's been getting As for the past two years.

Her mother cries that night for the first time in almost a year.

**

The world normalizes around the time of her graduation and she feels like she can breathe again.

(She hopes it's finally all over.)

**

At one point, the space in her that bothers her every waking minute drives her a little bit crazy.

She tries to eat and eat and eat, hoping it'll fill itself, but she ends up vomiting instead, earning a concerned chat from her mother, hoping she's not becoming bulimic.

At fourteen she goes to her first party and smokes her first cigarette and hates it (but not the ones after that).

She also tries alcohol and It almost goes away.

**

If her mother notices that she spends most Sundays in her room, looking she got ran over by a bus, or vomits at ungodly hours in the morning, she doesn't say anything.

(She thinks it's because she'd rather have her daughter have _normal_ problems. It also helps that Claire still keeps up with her work.)

**

She's laughing in someone's basement, in a circle of seven passing a joint around and she wonders if she feels free and lovely now, what it would be like to do harder drugs – would she be able to fly?

**

After getting her permit at age fifteen, she blackouts at a party and finds out the morning after she hooked up with John McCarthy, her partner in Biology.

When she gets home she dumps all the alcohol she has left down the sink and tries not to be more dramatic than she's already acting.

(How can she not remember as something as important as her _first kiss_?)

**

"I can't believe you dumped all your alcohol – _some_ of us could've used it," Sarah says to Claire with a pointed look. They're talking at Sarah's desk in biology class.

"Sorry. I wasn't thinking," Claire answers, staring at John from across the room.

He looks up, blushes and smiles before looking down at his desk.

**

Two weeks later he takes her out on a date and it's pretty awkward. There are long pauses in conversation and she knows it's out of pity, that he's a good guy and wants to do right by her.

She's sure he'll make a great boyfriend for someone else.

She lets him kiss her properly on her front step – just a peck, really – and says goodbye.

After that they strictly talk about biology.

**

The emptiness is still there and as weeks, months go on, she craves a smoke or a drink (or five) to make it fuzzy and go away, but she just smokes two cigarettes a week and sucks it up. _Non semper erit aestas._

( _It won't always be summer_ – a Latin phrase she picked up while skimming through her textbook while bored in class.)

**

**praeludium (ii)**

Claire is driving with her mother to the grocery store when the first few notes of "Take It to the Limit" play on the local classic rock station.

She hasn't listened to this song in five years.

And she actually doesn't want to change the station, for once.

But before the bassist (she always thought it was cool that someone other than the lead singer got to sing) can start singing the first line, her mother changes the station to a pop one, now playing a rap song.

Claire sighs and doesn't say anything.

**

Her mother doesn't take the eleven o'clock curfew too seriously as long as she knows where Claire is.

But tonight Claire sneaks out and drives, the windows down so the wind whips through her hair. The stereo system is off, but her iPod is plugged in, waiting to be turned on.

She keeps driving through town and gets on I-55 South before she turns on her stereo, playing The Eagles for the first time (she never did know why she bothered to put them on there in the first place).

She's tense as the song begins, not knowing if she's going to be able to handle it, but when he starts singing _all along at the end of the evening…_ she relaxes a little, exhaling a breath.

She just listens at first, even though she knows all the words, having sung it enough times with her father so long ago, but once the chorus comes on, she starts singing quietly along.

Until she hears something funny coming from the stereo.

Furrowing her eyebrows, she increases the volume a bit at _if it all fell to pieces tomorrow, would you still be mine?_ and holy mother of _God –_

She quickly pulls over to the side of the road and parks, clutching at her chest as she can faintly hear her father through the speakers and she may just be losing her mind.

_And when you're looking for your freedom (nobody seems to care)…_

__She closes her eyes and breathes. Maybe it doesn't have to mean she's going crazy – she's seen her father possessed by an angel – she's seen demons and hunters and been possessed by an angel herself. Maybe all this isn't _bad_ all the time.

Maybe –

_Still you're coming back, you're running back, you're coming back for more…_

__She cranks the stereo as loud as she can stand and _God_ if she closes her eyes she can almost pretend he's sitting right next to her as she sings, " _So put me on a highway, and show me a sign, and take it to the limit one more time!_ " her voice fading and cracking because Castiel may have left her with the ability to learn almost any language, he didn't give her the voice of an angel.

She's laughing and crying at the same time and now she understands perfectly how that works.

And for a beautiful, gorgeous minute, she feels _whole_.

**

She stays out all night and watches the sun rise over a random farm an hour outside of Pontiac. And after the sun rises above the horizon, she makes it home just in time to attend Sunday morning mass, her first one since her father was alive, and for the first time in years, she's okay.

**

**vii. with your arms outstretched trying to take flight (leaving everything behind).**

Claire gets enough scholarships to attend the University of Chicago without needing student loans, which is a huge blessing. (One good thing Castiel did to her brain, having her be a language prodigy, she supposes.)

Although she doesn't like the idea of leaving her mother alone, she'll be less than two hours away.

(She just needs to get _away_ – Pontiac makes everything harder for her.)

**

She finishes karate school with a brown belt, which is pretty damn good, if she says so herself.

**

The first thing she packs is her father's old favorite tie. She's afraid if she leaves it at home, her mother will get rid of it.

**

The first person she meets at orientation is a boy named Judas from Greenwich, Connecticut ("The most pretentious place on the east coast," he announces with a roll of his eyes and a scoff). He gives out his name with a wry smile and everyone breaks out into that horrible Lady Gaga song in his wake.

"Doesn't that get annoying?" Claire asks, trying hard not to laugh.

"Unfortunately I've had to deal with it since the eighth grade. At least it got more attention and care than my coming out as bi, so," he answers with a shake of his head, his hair failing into his hazel eyes. "Just call me Jude – I'd rather be associated with the Beatles."

"Okay, nice to meet you, Jude," she says, sticking her out her hand with a smile.

" _Hey Jude, don't make it bad…_ " someone sings a few feet away.

"It's like I live in a musical," Jude sighs.

**

Claire's roommate Steph is also an undeclared major, a girl from New Orleans with big blonde hair and a big smile to go along with it.

"I hope you don't mind, but I wake up early for Sunday mass," Steph says in a southern drawl that makes Claire smile.

"So do I," Claire answers.

Steph unsubtly looks down at Claire's chest, noting the lack of a cross. "Oh! Well, isn't that just perfect! We'll go together."

Claire just hopes Steph isn't chatty at mass because she's not willing to talk about her father to anyone here just yet.

**

Chicago is so much louder and brighter than Pontiac and it's such a nice change – the different cultures, the skyscrapers, Lake Michigan distracts her so much more than empty farm lands and the small town gossip ever did.

**

Since she got 5s in all her AP language tests – French, Spanish, Latin, Italian (this one she studied on her own for) – she takes German and considers taking Chinese next semester. Or maybe she wants to take Japanese – she hasn't decided yet.

Her other classes are more difficult, but she enjoys them for the most part. She thinks she is, anyway.

(Anything is better than home.)

**

" _Hello, Claire, it's Mom. Just calling to ask how you're doing. I miss you. Just – give me a call when you're available, okay? Love you._ "

Claire puts away her phone and promises to call her mother later.

**

Jude kisses her during a dorm party after a Religious Studies department meet and greet and _this_ is how it's supposed to be – shocks up and down her nerves and she can't stop smiling against his mouth.

( _This_ is the best she's felt and she hopes it stays that way.)

**

Winter comes and she thought Pontiac had really bad winters.

Ice winds come from across Lake Michigan and she can't get warm, no matter how many layers she wears or how long of showers she takes; she's frozen and the empty space becomes a block of pure ice.

She thinks about telling Jude about everything – they've been dating for two months and even if they break up in the future, she can't imagine her not having him in her life.

Instead she looks up different colleges and universities.

**

She goes home for Christmas and she and her mother get into a huge fight about transferring.

"We can't _afford_ it – you're lucky Chicago offers you so much!" her mother yells, her voice already hoarse because she doesn't do much talking these days. "I thought you were _happy_ there!"

Claire tries to tell her it's not really happiness, that the only thing she's passionate about is Jude and some the distractions of Chicago. She doesn't like how the Religious Studies department is weirdly competitive and strange – that people don't like the fact that she's easily fluent in so many languages and that she's wanted by all the professors in that department. She doesn't like how she sometimes gets lost while walking through the streets of Chicago, at how fast paced it is – it reminds her of being chained to something much bigger than herself and she never wants to experience that again. 

She just slams the door and leaves for midnight mass two hours early.

**

Jude surprises her with a ticket from Bloomington to White Plains ("You have to switch planes in Chicago, but I figured it's easier on your mom that way driving wise," Jude tells her over the phone and Claire may just love him a little bit after that).

She arrives the day after New Year's and he picks her up in a sleek, sporty car ("I know, I know, I totally fit in here it's gross, but you can't deny an Audi when given one for your sixteenth birthday," he says a bit sheepishly) and the drive to Greenwich is twenty minutes.

His house is a lot bigger than hers was, as is the property it's on, but it's warm inside and his parents are kind and not at all like the people he claims inhabit Greenwich.

When she tells him that, he laughs, rubbing the back of his neck – a habit of his when he's embarrassed. "Yeah, I know. I'm really lucky. But I have friends from around here who are pretty fucked up because of the way people raise their kids – that they have to be the best in everything they do."

She doesn't really understand it – Pontiac was never like that. But then again, Livingston County isn't all that known for much.

**

She sits him down in his bedroom and tells him about wanting (needing) to transfer, that she chose UChicago for a lot of reasons that aren't good for her, that she needs to go somewhere that's not as _freezing_.

He doesn't say a word, even though he's obviously upset, but he nods and says he understands when she finishes.

She almost tells him she loves him, but it's too early for that.

She smokes four cigarettes that night.

**

A week into the spring semester, she decides on UC Berkeley and starts the re-application process.

She also decides on taking Chinese. It's the most difficult language she's taken – it being the only non-Latin based language she's attempted to learn – but she enjoys it a lot. She likes working hard at it.

**

She tells Steph about wanting to transfer and Steph pulls her into a tight hug. "I understand. You do what you have to do to be happy," she tells her seriously.

Claire almost tells her to follow her own advice – she sees the way Steph looks at Kim who lives down the hall, but sometimes people need time to face certain things.

**

A week before Claire is supposed to find about UC Berkeley, she sleeps with Jude. They talked about it beforehand – the pros and cons and everything else – and she loves him (and he loves her, which she can't really imagine, but his eyes are genuine enough).

It's awkward and he makes sure it's pleasant for her at one point, which she giggles about later because _such a gentleman_ , but she doesn't regret it at all.

**

She gets in – scholarships and all.

(Even though her mother claims she's happy for her, Claire knows the two thousand miles between them will be more of a challenge.)

**

During spring break, when Jude stays with her in Pontiac, they split a bottle of cheap wine in her room and she tells him everything ( _in vino veritas_ ).

When she finishes, he gets up he claims he needs to take a walk and think.

(At least he doesn't take his stuff with him.)

**

A few hours later – "I got a little lost," he admits, which is absurd because Pontiac isn't like Chicago, which she can barely navigate in and she's been living there for months – he comes back and just says, "One night when you fell asleep in my room, you started muttering in some weird language that I thought was Latin, now I'm not…so sure…"

It's the one language she doesn't think she'll ever get to fully remember – the tongue of the angels.

She hugs him tightly and almost thanks God, but realizes that God has nothing to do with it – that God never does. When people do good things and surprise her, it's not God's doing, just like people doing bad things isn't God's doing.

**

Leaving the University of Chicago isn't as upsetting as she thought it might be. It helps that she and Jude agree to stay together, despite her reservations (there's no way it'll work).

In fact, once she's on her way home, she blasts "Already Gone" and smiles.

( _And I'm already gone, and I'm feelin' strong, I will sing this victory song, woo hoo, hoo woo, hoo hoo._ )

**

**praeludium (iii)**

It's a fluke that Claire is home – her mother out food shopping – when she gets a call at 10:46 in the morning in early June from Dean Winchester.

She almost hangs up the phone, she really does, but there has to be a damn good reason for him to call her after all these years and frankly, she's curious.

" _I know this is…really out of the blue and I'm sorry, but. Castiel was hoping to…chat with you._ "

She hasn't heard that name out loud in just as many years.

"Why?" she asks, her tone flat.

She hears him sigh on the other line. She wonders how old he is now. " _I'm not sure. He just came by last night, did me a solid, and asked if it would be okay. He didn't want to just show up and surprise you._ "

"He still looks like him, doesn't he."

" _…Yeah._ "

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. "Fine. Tell him he can see me."

" _Just so you know – after…after everything that happened with you dad and after – some other things happened – Castiel told me some things and…just…hear him out. Or at least try to. He can be a dick, but. He's good._ "

"It's easy for you to say that, Dean, he was your friend. He's just…a creature that took my father away from me," she answers sadly, hanging up.

**

She doesn't tell her mother about the call. She doesn't talk to her mother about a lot of things these days.

**

**viii. and the sad truth of the matter is i'll never get over it (but i'm gonna try to get better).**

A week later at around noon, she places her bag at the foot of the passenger seat and just when she straightens out to pick up the Slurpee from the roof of her car, she sees her fath – _Castiel_ – standing a few feet away.

"Fuck!" she exclaims, jumping back into the car parked next to hers, thankful an alarm doesn't go off. " _Shit_ , I shouldn't – I shouldn't curse in front of an angel, oh my God. Wait, fuck, I can't say his name in vain either and oh my _fucking_ god I really can't stop I'm sorry, I just," Claire stops rambling, holds out a hand to prevent Castiel from saying anything and takes a deep breath. "Okay," she says, opening her eyes. "I'm okay."

The corner of Castiel's mouth twitches and her father was never capable of such control. "Don't apologize. I'm quite used to cursing and hearing the Lord's name in vain."

Claire nods, swallowing the large lump in her throat, despising the way he still looks like her father when she last saw him, but it mostly just breaks her heart. "My dad isn't in there…right?" she asks.

He shakes his head. "No, he's in Heaven. He has been for a few years now. This is just…the form I take when I visit Earth."

She really wishes she could sit somewhere. "Do you do that a lot?"

"Things in Heaven are quite hectic. This is the first time in…six of your years."

"Can we sit in my car and do this?" Claire asks, a tear escaping her eye and she quickly wipes it away. "I find this a – look it's ridiculous that we're having this conversation in front of a damn 7-Eleven in broad daylight, so."

Castiel looks behind him, stares at the front of the store, and looks back at her before saying, "Strange name for a store. Does it have a significant meaning – the fact that one of the numbers is numerical while the other is verbal?"

She blinks at him. _This_ is the angel messed up her family?

"Just get in the car," she tells him tiredly, taking the Slurpee from the roof of the car and getting inside.

He scares her again by already sitting inside.

"What is that large beverage?" he asks, oblivious (or maybe he's just used to that reaction, too).

Claire takes a deep breath. "Dr Pepper Slurpee."

He nods, looking pensive.

"Want a sip?" she asks without thinking.

There's an awkward silence that lasts for a few seconds until Castiel answers, "If that was a serious offer, then yes."

She looks forward and hands it to him. She hears him sip it and it makes her feel awkward, kind of like when she first realized her parents made mistakes and weren't as perfect as she thought. 

(This just makes him seem… _human_.)

"Do you like it?" she asks, sneaking a glance.

He nods, licking his lips and Jesus _Christ_ , this is so _weird_ – that's her _father's body_. Except it's _not_. 

"If I didn't promise to never binge drink again, I'd be demanding a handle of vodka," she mutters.

He places the Slurpee into the cup holder as she turns on the car and drives out of the parking lot.

"Okay, you wanted to talk to me, so…what do you want to say?" she asks after they've been driving in silence for a minute.

"You don't wish to go first?"

"Just talk, Castiel."

He nods. "Alright. I wanted to come to you to apologize properly."

She slams on the breaks and she assumes Castiel somehow moves the car to the side of the road because she's not in control of anything right now, her hands glued to the wheel and her eyes unblinking to the point of tears streaming down her face.

"I'm…so sorry for the pain I caused for your entire family. It wasn't right." He finally looks at her, eyes sincere and it _kills_ her to see them again, even if they are unnaturally bright now.

"You're sorry," she repeats, wiping her face, not knowing how to take this.

"Yes. Would you like me repeat what I said? I understand that you went through a phase of shock."

She barks out a laugh and has to slap a hand to her mouth to silence herself. "You are – just. Nothing like I remember."

He looks down briefly, his mouth pursed. "You did not meet me at my most…kind."

She's sure there's more to that, but she's not sure if she wants to know, or if she doesn't care to know.

"And I'm so sorry for what I did to you," Castiel whispers. "I hurt you."

She clenches her jaw and stares ahead, not wanting to admit it.

"I can fix it. I should have done it long ago, but the world was in danger."

"No," she answers loudly.

She stares at him, his brow furrowed in confusion. "That emptiness in you must be uncomfortable, surely," he says without a hint of irony.

She snorts. "That's one way to describe it, yeah. But. I'm fluent in English, French, Spanish, Latin, Italian, and Chinese because of what you did to me. And I'm sure I'll be fluent in more when I get around to studying more, so." She sighs. "I plan on doing things with it. And even though the thought of not having this space in me sounds…so tempting. I'm going to decline on that offer. At least for now."

He nods. "Okay."

"Okay." She turns on the car again and begins driving. "What did you tell Dean? He said you told him some things. I assumed they were about my dad."

"Just that he was a man full of love. He loved your mother and you so much."

"You were slow in switching from my body to his on purpose, weren't you?"

"It was the least I could do for you and Jimmy." 

She nods. She considers telling him that her mother _hates_ him, that she blames him on her ruined faith in God, but she assumes he already knows all that.

"So…if I want to take a rain check on your…fixing me. I can do that?"

"Of course. Just pray for me and I shall come."

"Okay." She takes her Slurpee and hands it to him. "For the trip back to Heaven."

He takes it with a small smile. "Thank you. It is quite good."

She shakes her head and smiles, but when she glances over to the passenger seat, it's empty.

"See you later, Castiel," she says, getting off the highway to start heading back home. She puts down all the windows and lets the wind blow through her hair, feeling lighter than she has in a while.

**

**ix. somehow, we keep marching on.**

California is so different from the Midwest. 

She's one of the few out of state undergraduate students at UC Berkeley, but she doesn't mind. Her roommate, a girl named Chloe, is kindhearted and maybe a little strange, but she considers herself to be weird too.

She already likes the atmosphere better – people seem more relaxed, but are still focused, and don't blink an eye that she's unnaturally fluent in a handful of languages.

"I think I really love it here," she tells Jude.

" _I'm glad. Still miss you – you won't believe the shit that's happened within the first week: Steph seems to have went through a fit over the summer and has embraced her lesbian self. It would be fantastic if she would stop asking me these questions on what it's like to like guys_ and _girls – if I prefer one or the other and frankly, I'm ready to offend her by saying I love dick and vagina equally._ "

Claire shakes her head with a laugh. "Don't do that, you'll give her a stroke. You can't blame her for being curious."

He sighs dramatically. " _No, I can't. But Jesus Christ, I've dealt with this for over five years and I got used to it not being a big deal among the people I care about._ "

"Just cut her some slack. If she continues to drive you crazy, I'll _gently_ talk to her about it, okay?"

" _Ugh, thank you, you're an angel_."

She barks out a loud, bitter laugh.

" _…Oh my God I didn't just say that_ shit _I'm – so sorry you know I didn't –_ "

"It's fine. I get it. Listen, I have to run to meet with my new advisor – they accidentally put me with a philosophy professor before, so."

" _Okay, right, I'll talk to you later – I love you_."

"Love you too."

**

Her advisor had forgotten about their meeting until the last minute and shows up in Birkenstocks, torn khakis, and a button down shirt with half the buttons undone. His long hair is wet and he has a smear of sunscreen on the side of his face and she should probably be more concerned about his apparent lack of professionalism, but he has a warm smile that kind of reminds her of her father's and they spend most of their meeting talking in every other language except in English. He enjoys saying one sentence in German and then responding to her question in Chinese.

"But seriously, just call me Solomon – _Dr. Samuels_ is too stuffy," he tells her in English. "Besides, any student who can keep up with me in linguistics deserves to be on a first name basis with everyone."

She wonders what her father would say about that, who always believed in having respect for people in important positions.

**

The weather certainly isn't perfect – there are sunny days and gloomy days and sometimes she wonders how the locals deal with the damn _fog_ , even if it isn't as bad as it is in San Francisco, but. She feels _better_ here.

(She hasn't smoked a single cigarette in weeks.)

She certainly loves seeing the San Francisco Bay – the shade of blue reminds her of one summer day years and years ago, when they drove over to Lake Michigan and even though she had floaties on, her father made sure that he was able to grab her at a moment's notice. He forgot sunglasses and he squinted his eyes a lot as he laughed and smiled.

It's a nice, comforting reminder, something she didn't have while remaining in Illinois.

**

She can't afford to go home for Thanksgiving – she spent a lot more money on textbooks and supplies than she planned and she's so upset she wants to cry because she doesn't want to leave her mother alone, not for this.

" _I can fly you out there, just say the word,_ " Jude tells her over the phone.

"I can't do that – I know you mean well, but –"

" _It can be an early Christmas present for you both, okay? It's as much for your mom as it is for you and you two shouldn't be apart._ "

Sometimes she wonders if Jude is a gift from Heaven or whatever as a thank you for her _contribution_. It's not as pleasant of a thought as she expected.

**

She talks to her advisor about studying abroad, about scholarships because there's no way in hell she can afford to go without them and her mother despises the idea of her taking out loans.

" _I don't want you to go into the world with debts up to your ears_ ," her mother tells her as soon as Claire considers the option on the phone. " _You'll thank me one day_."

But when her advisor suggests applying for scholarships that would allow her to stay the entire year Rome – to maybe study in the Vatican itself – she can't say no, even though she doesn't like the idea of only coming home for Christmas.

**

" _Well, it's a good thing I have a lot of frequent flier miles and adore the eternal city,_ " Jude says on the phone after she submits her applications, good natured as always and she's not sure if she can do this for another year. It's hard enough doing it with a two-hour time difference and almost two thousand miles apart – having a seven hour time difference and twice the distance sounds so _exhausting_.

**

She wins the scholarships and she purchases her ticket to Rome.

When she first got into the University of Chicago, when she got into UC Berkeley, her first reaction was to immediately thank God – it's an expression nowadays more than anything significant.

But this time she just smiles thinks to herself, _go me_.

**

"Not a surprise," her advisor says as he pats her on the shoulder in congratulations. "My wife and I were planning to have our ten year anniversary over there, so we'll be sure to give you a call. We'll take you out to dinner."

"Well at least I have one meal covered."

He laughs for about five minutes, even though she seriously has to get a job as a waitress if she plans on surviving there.

**

When she moves out of her dorm and comes back home, she makes a decision.

**

She hates to do this when he's visiting her, but she tells him she wants to end their relationship when she goes off to Rome for the year and he to India for the fall semester. It's too hard.

He's upset, but he understands and he's honestly the best damn person she knows in this awful world.

"We're still friends though, right? We have to be, you can't totally get rid of me," he says with teary eyes and a charming smile.

"I wouldn't dare try to get rid of you, Judas," Claire says, hugging him tightly and trying hard not to cry.

**

Her mother stops dyeing her hair that summer, letting the grey show. It makes her look ten years older.

**

"We can't talk on the phone unless it's an emergency, so we'll have to e-mail and Skype," Claire explains as she sets up a Skype account for her mother.

"We're better off with snail mail, I'm terrible with this," her mother sighs.

"Hey, if you can master Minesweeper, you can definitely master this. Now pay attention and take notes if you have to."

Her mother smiles, placing a hand on Claire's cheek. "Sometimes the little expressions you make are identical to your dad's."

She bites the inside of her cheek and tries to ignore how _sad_ that sounds.

**

During her last night at home, she visits her father's gravestone. Even though he's obviously not there (she wonders where _is_ his body, anyway?), she kisses the stone and hopes he can feel it in Heaven.

**

**x. this could really be a good life.**

Rome is crazy. It's loud, it's hot, it's bright, it's throbbing with history and modernity and it's a lot more than Chicago – she thought she'd hate it, but instead she's already in love.

Maybe it's just because it's Europe. Or maybe she's just still not over the jetlag, but she's not seeing this as the mistake she thought she might.

**

She goes to classes. She makes so many trips to the Vatican that she's even become familiar with a few of the bus drivers. She e-mails Jude once a week and she kisses a Danish student in her program while out in a club. She has to wear scarves to cover hair at night because Roman men really like blondes and she doesn't want to be bothered (not that she can't kick their asses anyway, but she's out of practice).

She reads manuscripts and parchments dated centuries old and she corrects one of her professors without thinking, which earns her more advanced work. She goes to mass in a lot of churches, her favorite one being a local one that has the most amazing gelateria a few doors down. She buys an expensive set of rosaries for herself and wears them as a necklace, even though she's sure it's blasphemous despite the number of girls her age doing it.

On the side she's teaching herself Arabic and while she's bored on the metro or bored in class, she doodles strange ruins and marks on the corner of her notebooks. She doesn't know what they are, but she has a feeling they're not of this world.

She flies home for Christmas and is picked up by Jude, who had to stay late for finals, and they go out for coffee before he catches his own flight home. He's cut his hair shorter and he's wearing his roommate's glasses because his prescription in his contacts isn't good enough anymore, especially at night. She gives him a cheap keychain because he collects them and a leather case for his glasses before kissing him on the cheek and parting ways.

She gives her mother a pair of handmade earrings from Perugia and an Italian Christmas CD, which she seems to enjoy enough. Her mother even attends midnight mass on Christmas Eve, and Claire can't stop smiling the entire time.

**

She completes the year with offers to stay longer, to complete internships this summer, but she needs to go home and be with her mother. They tell her to consider getting her PhD so she can come back to study more – it's not a bad idea, especially since it's paid for.

(Sometimes she still thinks of St. Philip the Apostle and pastries, but it's a silly whim.)

She also does have dinner with her advisor and his wife, who is a yoga instructor in San Francisco and has the worst Italian accent she's ever heard. It's the nicest meal she has there and does her best not to think about prices.

"You look really well, Claire. I'm glad you got to experience this," he says in Italian and bless his wife, she doesn't blink an eye.

"Thank you," she says, oddly touched.

"Claire Novak is going to shake up the field of religion, mark my words," he says to his wife.

**

The week of Easter she uses most of the money she's made waitressing to send her mother to Italy for a week. They spend two days in Rome and spend four in Florence, borrowing a classmate's villa.

It's the happiest she's seen her mother in a long time.

There's one afternoon when they're reading outside and sharing a bottle of wine and Claire looks up, the sky pink and yellow and blue, and feels content.

(There's one thing she knows about Italy is that no matter what city she's in, she feels like God has touched something here, and she knows she'll be sad to leave.)

**

**praeludium (iv)**

Claire wakes up from a dream and draws a symbol on her nightstand, unable to find paper. When she finishes, she can understand its meaning for a split second before the knowledge goes away.

 _Castiel_.

She doesn't wash it off.

**

**xi. every plan is a tiny prayer to father time.**

A week into Claire's senior year in Berkeley, her mother calls to inform her daughter that she has an aortic aneurysm. It's minor, something that can be watched if her blood pressure is controlled, her diet changed. Not enough to warrant surgery.

Claire almost prays for Castiel that night, to take her rain check and bargain it to save her mother. But a dark thought crosses her mind that maybe her mother won't appreciate that, and not just for her daughter's sake.

**

" _I can stop by your house, if you're worried. It's not a big deal,_ " Jude says to her on Skype.

"You're two hours away from her."

" _I_ like _your mom, it's fine. Besides, I can get a home cooked meal out of this – I'm getting something out of it too_ ," he jokes.

She shakes her head, smiling. "Thank you."

**

She has a fight with her mother over schools – Claire wants to go back to UChicago so she can stay close to her mother now, but her mother tells her to go where she wants to go.

" _You're not_ happy _here, Claire. I'm going to be_ fine _,_ " her mother insists, even though Claire doesn't like it.

Even so, she applies to various programs in California and to the one in UChicago, wondering if she should start praying to God for direction like she used to.

**

She gets in everywhere she applies to – God clearly has no hand in this, which isn't a surprise at all.

**

After she rants to Jude about where to go, he tells her that he's dating someone and it's really serious – the guy, Greg, was a sophomore transfer, so she hasn't met him, but the way Jude talks about him is enough to make her smile.

It probably makes her boring that she's not jealous or upset or anything. Shouldn't people have residual feelings over their first boyfriend?

"I'm really happy for you – he better treat you right, or else."

Jude laughs. " _I should probably warn him that my ex can do a round-house kick to his face._ "

"Well, I don't know about that, but I can break his nose before he can blink, so."

**

It takes her a few weeks to decide on Stanford – she cries as she accepts because she's incredibly selfish and can't live in Illinois for another five to seven years.

**

Her grandmother passes away a few days before spring break and Claire has to scramble to finish midterms before flying home to help her mother, who barely shed a tear over it all.

She's just so tired these days.

And while her grandmother is being lowered into the ground, finally resting with her husband twenty years later, she can feel the jealousy burning in her mother, making her sick to her stomach even though she understands.

**

Her mother gets steadily worse to the point that she's not allowed to go on a plane, so she has no way to get to Claire's graduation.

" _Fuck_ ," Claire hisses, her hands fisted in her hair as she tries to think because her mother can't _drive_ two thousand miles – that's insane. And she can't ask Jude to do that for her – it's too much, especially since they haven't dated in two years and he's in a relationship with someone else.

 _Shit_.

**

She knows it's not her father in her dream. In her dreams he never wears that trench coat, suit, and tie.

"Castiel, just fix my mother enough to get her on a plane, _please_ , and do it while she's sleeping because she'll have a goddamn heart attack if she sees you," she tells him, feeling like she's already been talking to him for hours.

He nods. "Okay."

**

She waits for her mother to get tested again, when she's given the okay to fly.

" _It's so bizarre, but I'll be able to fly to California, thank_ God _,_ " her mother gushes.

Claire puts her hand over her phone and looks up and mouths, "Thank you."

**

Graduation is full of tears and goodbyes and the sun shines bright when she receives her diploma.

Claire Novak is twenty-two years old and she feels really good about herself and her future.

**

**xii. "love is watching someone die."**

The first year of her doctorate is stressful – the workload is hard, her mother's failing health is constantly hanging over her head and it's only a matter of time before –

**

She's dreaming again and she's already crying when she sees Castiel.

"Claire," he starts.

"She doesn't _want_ to be healed, I can't let you – just leave her be."

He bows his head in acceptance. "I'm sorry."

He walks towards her and for a stupid moment, she thinks he's going to kiss her forehead (she still can't get over it), but he just presses two fingers to her forehead. "Sleep peacefully for now."

When Claire Alexandra Novak wakes up with tear tracks down her face, she knows she's the last living member of her family. She's twenty-three.

**

Everything is done on autopilot – the calls, the paperwork, the will and even though she knows this is what her mother wanted, that she must be at peace with her father in Heaven, but.

For the first time in a long time, the empty space inside of her becomes _unbearable_.

**

Claire wears a navy dress because she put her nice black dress in storage in Stanford and she would rather look nice in that than a slob in her cotton black dress.

Jude flew in late last night and he drives them to the cemetery early. He stays in the car while she stares at her parents' graves, hoping they're happy.

(It took every ounce of will she had not order Jude to go to a liquor store on the way there.)

**

Before the service begins, Dean Winchester and whom she assumes to be his family arrive.

Even though he's visibly aged – grey hairs and lines on his face, in the corners of his eyes – he's still handsome. His wife, son (maybe not his – he looks close to her age), and daughter are all good looking; a picture-perfect family and she wonders how he even found out about her mother's death.

"May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace."

She bites her tongue until she tastes blood.

**

"Dean," she greets him once she's said goodbye and thank you to everyone else. Jude is standing outside the cemetery, on his phone taking a business call.

He smiles a little. "Claire."

She officially meets his wife Lisa, her son Ben, and their daughter Samantha, and when she looks into Samantha's blue-green eyes, she remembers – _Sam Winchester._

 __But when Dean clenches his jaw and tells her that he died a decade ago, she realizes that a part of her was rather bitter toward the Winchesters, for getting what they wanted that night and she and her mother were left with nothing but bloodstained clothes and guilt.

Because that aortic aneurysm didn't kill her mother – guilt did.

(But in the end she supposes they're both shit out of luck.)

**

Jude has a torn, guilty expression on his face and she says, "You have to leave."

"I'm sorry, my boss is a fucking bitch and I can't – we're already struggling with the rent and –"

"Go, it's fine."

"No, it's not, you shouldn't stay alone."

"I won't," she lies, "I'm having Dean and his family stay over – they did come all the way from Indiana."

Jude sighs and pulls her into a tight hug. "Call me if you need anything, okay?"

As soon as he drops her off at home, she drives to the liquor store.

**

She stares at a bottle of vodka and considers.

**

The doorbell rings and she tears her gaze away from the bottle and reluctantly answers the door.

"Ben?" she says, confused, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Hey, uh," he rubs the back of his neck. "This is gonna sound…really creepy and weird, given that I just met you a few hours ago and I swear it's not a come on, but. I figured you shouldn't be alone." He looks over her shoulder and she knows he spots the bottle. "Yeah," he adds lamely.

"I'm fine."

He gives her a 'bitch, please' look, which she can't believe because people have been walking on eggshells with her all damn week. "I happen to make killer omelets, so you should be begging me to stay."

"You sure that's not a come on?"

He grins at her and oh, she can see so many girls falling for that.

She lets him in and he asks for a tour because it's a habit Dean instilled in him, just in case. She finds out he's at Indiana University in Indianapolis studying social work (she never would've guessed that from the guy standing in front of her wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt that looks about thirty years old) and is going into his senior year.

He also sees the symbol drawn on her nightstand and tells her it's Enochian.

So that's the tongue of the angels.

"I spoke it once," she tells him while they're lounging on her bed – her at the head and him on his stomach at the foot. "I sometimes wonder if I'd be able to know it again, without Castiel."

They talk about Castiel – since he already knows how she met him, he tells her about meeting him a few years ago when he was on the cusp of eighteen and Castiel branded his ribs to hide him from angels. He talks about how for years he wanted to be a hunter like Dean, but eventually realized that what happened to Dean – he got off easy in comparison to most hunters, who die young and horribly.

"I couldn't do that to my mom," he admits. "Such a momma's boy," he adds, shaking his head.

She tries to tell him about having to pretend she wasn't as good in Spanish as she was in middle school, but stops because she doesn't want to cry, at least not in front of him.

She falls asleep during a lull of their conversation, Ben humming a slowed down version of "Don't Fear the Reaper" – she doesn't know if he realizes it – and she grips her comforter tightly.

**

The night before her mother's death, Claire makes her mother a cup of tea and brings it up to her bedroom.

"Thank you, honey," her mother says, her voice soft because apparently an aortic aneurysm can affect vocal chords.

Claire swallows and nods, looking down at the comforter, wondering how much longer this is going to last.

"Claire."

She looks up and there are tears in her mother's eyes. "Yeah?"

It takes her mother a minute or so to speak. "I'm sorry I wasn't really there for you – after your dad's," she swallows. "I never did ask you about – what it was like. With Castiel."

Her mother hasn't spoken that name in over ten years.

Claire tries to describe it – how it felt like she was burning from the inside out, but it was just so _glorious_ , like if she were to explode, she'd experience all and be all. She tells her about when she gave him permission, there wasn't much time to acclimate and he felt like shards of crystal consuming her, scratching at her soul, her mind. That there's always going to be this _hole_ in her, like she's meant to have something greater inside, but she's known for a long time that it's never going to be filled.

When she finishes, her mother wipes the tears off her cheeks like she used to when she was young.

"Castiel came to me and apologized a few years ago," she admits.

Her mother hums, playing with the wedding band she still wears around her finger. 

"I didn't want to tell you because you'd know that I had forgiven him. Forgave him a long time ago."

"I know you did, it's okay."

"He gave me time to say goodbye."

Her mother pulls her in for a hug and they stay like that for a while.

(As for last conversations, this one leaves Claire feeling a little lighter.)

**

**xiii. how will you start it over?**

Claire wakes up to the smell of bacon. It takes her a few seconds to remember that Ben – whose last name she doesn't actually know, despite the number of hours they talked the night before – stayed over.

She gets out of bed to find him making omelets, as he promised.

"I don't know what you like in omelets, so I just made myself one."

"Cheese is fine," she tells him, rubbing her eyes as she goes to the coffee maker, pleasantly surprised he already made a pot.

"I suggest getting a Keurig – these are a bit out of date," he says.

She doesn't say that it was her mother's choice, that she liked controlling how strong her coffee was, but she doesn't say anything and just pours herself a mug. 

She takes a seat and reads the paper while he continues cooking in a comfortable silence until she hears the doorbell ring. He sighs, turning off the stove. "That would probably be the family, I'll get it."

She puts her head in her hands when he leaves because she's pretty sure her mother would _not_ like this development at all.

"Just let them in – might as well have breakfast too," she calls out, dropping her hands and just accepting it. Maybe this is what happens – once you've experienced the supernatural you naturally come together with others like you. Makes sense.

Surprisingly, breakfast is rather nice – she hasn't experienced what it's like to have a meal with a loud family, bursting with life. Even when her father was alive, they were reserved and calm – this is just calamity and Dean slaps Ben upside the head when he asks about getting the Impala for college graduation, saying he better worry about doing well and actually graduating.

She ducks her head to hide her smile because she hasn't smiled in a week and it's too soon.

**

They leave soon after breakfast and Ben hands her a card with Dean's car mechanic and restoration business on it, but on the back there's a handwritten number. "Also not a come on, but I have unlimited texting. And I have a fuckton of minutes since I hate talking on the phone, but I'll make an exception."

She takes it. "I should hope you don't use those lines because they won't get you any."

He laughs and she swears the apartment brightens.

**

Over the summer she sells everything – rugs, furniture, bed frames, clothes – and eventually moves out come August. The last piece of furniture she manages to get rid of is her nightstand and she finally washes the Enochian marks away and ends up replicating them on the inside of her wrist with pen everyday.

It takes her a while to actually leave, though. Sure, the apartment wasn't her true home, but this – her mother – was her last tie to Pontiac; there's no way she'll ever come back here again.

And when she sits in the car, unwilling to start it, she ends up calling Ben Braeden (finally got the last name during that breakfast).

" _Hey._ "

She bites her lip. " _Hi, it's Claire._ "

Pause. " _Hello, Claire Novak, how are you?_ " he drawls.

"Have you started school yet?"

" _No, I don't start for another week and a half, why?_ "

"How would you feel about doing a road trip with me from Pontiac to Stanford?"

Silence. " _You're leaving for good?_ "

"Yeah. I'm bringing the car over myself. I could use the company."

As soon as she says that, she realizes he'd have no way of getting back to Indiana unless – 

" _Let me talk to my mom and Dean really quick – I'll call you back._ " And he hangs up.

Fifteen minutes later he calls back to say he's on his way and he'll be there in three hours.

**

The Impala pulls up next to her car and Ben gets out of the driver's seat while Dean gets out of the passenger seat. Ben takes a bag out of the back seat and walks over to her with a charming smile. "Two-thousand-one-hundred-and-forty-two-point-eight miles," he states as he opens the passenger side of her car, placing his bag on the floor since there isn't room with all her belongings in the backseat. "I call dibs on driving through Wyoming, though – apparently that's a sight."

Dean walks over to them, a little stiff from the drive, which leaves him with a grumpy expression on his face that cheers Claire up a little. "Be careful," he says to both of them. "Don't do anything stupid," he says directly to Ben, "and watch out for her." Dean then looks at Claire and says, "Take care of yourself, Claire."

"Thanks," she says, rubbing the back of her neck.

"Is that _Enochian_?" Dean blurts, eyes stuck on her wrist.

She looks down at it. "Uh, yeah. It's – I think it's Castiel's…name, maybe."

Dean continues to stare, as if committing to memory. Suddenly he snorts, shaking his head. "Well that sigil could've been useful a time or two," he mutters.

Claire doesn't know what to make of that.

Dean soon hugs Ben goodbye, orders him to call once a day for his mom's sake, and he awkwardly puts a hand on Claire's shoulder briefly before driving off in the Impala.

Ben turns to her and says, "Let me know when you want to stop or switch or whatever," before they get inside the car.

With shaky hands, she turns on the ignition and tries to breathe.

**

**xiv. a friend like you.**

It's when she drives by her old house – now the home of a young couple with twin boys – does she start crying. She wonders if they can sense angelic echoes on the front porch like she can.

It gets worse when she leaves the town limits and she knows Ben is tense in the passenger seat, no doubt fearing she'll get them in an accident.

After a few miles though, she calms down, the rest of the ride silent.

Until they pass the Illinois border – then she has to pull off the highway before the Le Claire, Iowa exit because she's shaking and she's _never coming back here_.

Ben parks the car for her and takes the keys out of the ignition before awkwardly pulling her into a hug, sneaking a hand between them to take off her seatbelt.

He holds her until she stops shaking.

**

Ben takes over the driving for a while until they reach Walcott, a cute town with a lot of motels to choose from. They get a one bedroom because it's cheaper and they've already slept in a bed together the first time they met.

He doesn't hold her while she sleeps, but she holds his hand before she passes out.

**

They wake up early on opposite sides of the bed and take turns using the bathroom before heading out to Iowa 80 – the world's largest truckstop.

"Sad thing to be bragging about," Ben mutters under his breath, but the go inside for coffee and breakfast, both of which aren't terrible. 

They explore a bit, looking at all the trucking accessories and Ben almost gets a hood ornament to stick on the front of her car, even though they all cost around a hundred dollars.

"It's a _rooster_ , Claire. What's funnier than a rooster on the front of a car? It's so lame it's almost cool. _Wait_ , there's a _flying pig_ one – I want this now it's _Pink Floyd_ , but Dean would actually flip a shit if I even thought about altering the Impala in any way."

They ultimately leave empty-handed and truly begin driving.

**

They stop in Des Moines for lunch and Ben says something about the prettiest girls living there, but she doesn't understand that reference, and they cross the Nebraska border at night.

"So Dean told me that I-80 is boring as fuck in Nebraska and that we should get off in Grand Island and take Nebraska Highway 2 to go through the Sandhills. We'd get back on I-80 through Alliance. We'd add a few hours to our drive, but," he shrugs, glancing at her before focusing on the road.

"Okay."

They stop at Grand Island (a name with two lies in it, to be honest) for the night and before she falls asleep she wonders what the hell has become of her life.

**

Ben drives and the Sandhills are mesmerizing – large rolling hills and open fields, empty save for the occasional car or two and animal life – birds, deer, elk. She offers to drive once, but he says he doesn't mind.

Sometimes she'll look away from her surroundings and watch him, how at peace he is and wonders if she can feel that too.

(After a while she closes her eyes and feels the sun on her face and the wind circulating in the car through open windows, her mind slowing down as they speed on and maybe she can feel it a little bit.)

**

The next morning is spent in Alliance at _Carhenge_ , which is the strangest structure she's ever seen (who would even think about replicating Stonehenge out of cars?), but she takes a picture of Ben standing in front of it with a open-mouthed grin on his face and he sends it to everyone he knows.

She drives out of Alliance and into Wyoming for a few hours and when he starts getting responses, he gapes at his phone. "Dean just called me a loser bitch. Such a _dick_ ," he says.

She laughs for the first time since her mother's death.

**

Ben takes over and they drive through the Red Desert, stopping somewhere in between Cheyenne and Laramie to rest and see a tree growing out of a rock, which Ben thinks is the weirdest fucking thing in his life, and she almost points out there he should know better.

He ends up going almost a hundred miles per hour when she wakes up from a nap and a cop pulls them over. They apologize and she slips that they're on their way to Stanford, that she had to move out of her home now that all her family has passed away and it's enough to get the cop to let them off the hook.

"I'm so going to Hell," she says as they start driving away.

He doesn't say anything – he just puts an arm around her shoulders and squeezes.

**

Salt Lake City involves their eating dinner in a pub and Ben catching the eye of half the women around the bar.

After the fifth girl to slow down and smile seductively at him, Claire says, "If you want to stick around, you can. I'll head back to the motel myself."

"Oh no you're not. I'll walk you," he says immediately.

"We're a block and a half away – I'll call you when I get there, if that makes you feel better."

He stares at her hard for a few seconds before saying, "Nope. Come along, Novak."

She rolls her eyes and pays the dinner, Ben having a sheepish expression on his face as he explains that the whole 'overprotective bs shtick' is a Dean thing that's been drilled into him ever since his little sister was born.

Not for the first time, she wonders what kind of person Dean Winchester really is.

He pats her head once with a "Goodnight, see you in the morning" before she locks the door behind her.

**

She wakes up at around four in the morning when Ben comes stumbling in, passing out onto the bed on his stomach.

She gets out of bed and gently takes off his shoes, ignoring his debauched face and the fact that his shirt is inside out. After placing a glass of water and aspirin by his nightstand, she makes sure to double-lock the door and then goes back to sleep.

**

She drives the next day into Nevada because the sun is too bright and not even sunglasses can lessen the pain of his hangover. She occasionally coos and pats his knee, which pisses him off and makes him try to curl into a ball, which doesn't work when he's six feet tall.

**

They drive through canyons and follow the paths of rivers and these are the moments when she feels so amazingly normal.

**

The last night of their road trip, they destroy a spirit.

It's done quickly – Ben asks around, he sets fire to a pair of working gloves all within six hours, and the spirit disintegrates before her eyes.

Afterwards, when they're falling asleep, she wonders if her life could've been different – if she decided to deal with the supernatural instead of attempting to live a normal life. If she traveled from state to state like the Winchester brothers, if she would've met Ben sooner, if they could've been partners.

Ben just puts a hand over her mouth. "Sh. You'd be the Bonnie to my Clyde. Except I'm not in the closet. And we'll have to test if you're as hot as Faye Dunaway eating that burger though," he says sleepily. "Sleep."

She's pretty sure she falls asleep with a smile on her face. While that life could've been exciting, she quite likes hers right now.

**

It takes them hours and hours to get to Stanford (101 traffic is quite awful) and he helps her settle in before taking an early flight out. Even though she has a pullout couch, he sleeps in the bed with her – it takes too much effort to set up the sofa bed and she's strangely comfortable with his constant shifting in his sleep and the way he occasionally sighs out loud in the dead of night.

Before they fall asleep, he asks her why she draws Castiel's sigil on her wrist everyday.

She looks down at it for a minute before saying, "Sometimes, when I was younger, like twelve, thirteen, fourteen, when I was just waking up, I'd think it was all just a horrible nightmare, like it was some crazy thing I came up with. That it was all in my head. I hated that I had to remind myself everything – acknowledge that damn _hole_ in me and sometimes I wished I ended up branded or something."

"You should get it tattooed," he responds sleepily.

She almost responds with 'my mom would _kill_ me,' but she supposes that doesn't matter now.

Besides, it does get annoying drawing it on her skin everyday.

**

She drives him to the San Francisco airport at six in the morning and at the terminal, he groans and drops his head on her shoulder. She brings her arm around to run a hand through his hair. "Thank you," she says simply.

He kisses her shoulder. "Anytime."

**

He calls her when he's home and they end up on the phone for a good two hours.

**

" _Sooo, how was it?_ " Jude asks on the phone with her that night. " _Please tell me you took advantage of the situation._ "

She shakes her head, a smile on her face. "It's not like that at all," she says with a shrug. "Besides, wouldn't that be a _little_ inconvenient, given that we're over two-thousand miles apart?"

" _Okay,_ fine _, but you better tell me as soon as you decide to jump him because Claire, he's attractive._ "

"Easy, Jude, you're basically married."

He laughs. " _I know, right? I may have to make it official at this point._ "

She's not sure if he's joking or being serious.

**

She starts another year and it all seems to be getting harder, working with a professor on his latest book and studying for her comprehensive exams that are at the end of the year, which will determine if she'll continue with the program.

Sometimes she gets overwhelmed and cries, wishing she could call her mom (praying doesn't do a damn thing). Sometimes she'll buy a handle and stare at it until she has the strength to put it away. And sometimes she'll call Ben, who's also stressed trying to find a job for when he graduates college.

(She spends her first Christmas alone, not due to lack of offers, but because she doesn't think she can handle company.)

One night in the late spring, she takes a break from studying and goes to a tattoo parlor – one that a colleague of hers recommended – and gets the Enochian mark on her wrist. It's about the size of a half dollar coin and it _hurts_ , but she feels like she's gotten something off her chest, like she's not keeping it inside anymore.

**

She has two weeks off before she starts a summer class, so she flies to Indiana to make Ben's graduation.

She sits next to Dean, Lisa, and Samantha and Dean looks about ready to yell at the president of the school to get on with it, which she can sympathize with because it's _hot_ outside and the president seems determined to be the center of attention for as long as possible.

(She ignores the fact that Dean keeps looking over at her wrist.)

She has dinner with the Braeden-Winchester family in their backyard, Dean making barbeque and Ben has had his arm around her shoulders for the past ten minutes, like he doesn't want her to disappear (they haven't seen each other since August, nine months ago).

She also meets a man named Bobby, an elderly man who calls Dean and Ben 'idjits' and yet looks at Samantha like she's the most precious thing in this world. 

He stares at her hard as she shakes his hand. "I can see the resemblance," he says in a gruff voice and she has to bite her tongue not to scream that he's talking about _Castiel_ when he should be talking about her father.

He pats her forearm apologetically and she realizes that she's been glaring at him.

**

She's jealous of Ben, that he gets to have all of this when her father wasn't even alive to watch her graduate elementary school, and after a certain point she excuses herself and goes to sleep in the guest room, or at least tries to.

Not long after, Ben comes in and just lies next to her, not saying anything.

**

Ben drives her to the airport and kisses her on the cheek goodbye, demanding that she spend Christmas with his family.

"Seriously, we can split the price – I'm starting to save now, so you better do your part," Ben tells her. "Besides, Samantha can't stop blabbering about you and she has to shut up somehow." He holds up a pinkie. " _Gotta do it_ , as she always says."

Claire laughs and curls her pinkie with his. "Okay, I promise."

**

A few weeks into her third year, she begins a relationship with a guy in her study group, Charlie. It's really more like a 'friends with benefits' relationship than anything else – they study together, then they go to one of their apartments, and then the other goes home afterward.

She just tells Ben she's seeing someone, wondering if he gets the hint since he uses that line about every girl he sleeps with.

She's a teaching assistant in the fall, working with Professor Costa, who plans on writing a book about modern Christianity and linguistics, going on sabbatical next year in Rome and is planning to invite two doctoral students to go.

She plans on being one of them – she misses Rome.

**

One time in late November after Thanksgiving, Ben calls her at midnight (her time), sobbing about a case he was being supervised on – how a little girl was abused by both parents and he swears to God she had Samantha's eyes.

It's _unbearable_ to be thousands of miles away that night.

**

She lands in Indiana on Christmas Eve and Ben totally knocks over a child in order to run over to her, bringing her in for a tight hug that lasts for over a minute. She makes fun of him for it throughout the week.

She helps Lisa cook after Christmas presents have been opened, but Dean is making apple pie at the other end of the kitchen, focused and intent.

"I'm pretty sure some other kind of pie is more appropriate for the occasion than apple pie, Dean, come on," Ben says as he collects silverware to set the dining room table.

Dean responds by hitting him upside the head, getting flour and bits of dough in his hair.

"Hey!"

Dinner is less rowdy, even though Bobby almost knocks over Samantha's soda twice in his heated debate with Dean and Lisa argues with Ben about getting a motorcycle (" _No way am I going to allow that as long as you live in this house_ ," she yells and he whispers in Claire's ear that he's ninety percent sure that his biological dad rode bikes and that it's all just inevitable).

**

Ben makes it until three in the morning before he sneaks into the guest room.

**

She flies back to California a few days later and Ben promises to try to visit her there over the summer, but his job is demanding and doesn't have very many vacation days. But she doesn't say anything and just holds him a little tighter.

**

**praeludium (v)**

After the spring semester – after ending her fling with Charlie and getting invited by Professor Costa to join her on sabbatical and taking her finals – Castiel visits a dream and she wants to know.

"Would I be able to understand Enochian if you spoke it right now?"

"Enochian cannot be comprehended by human minds."

"But I spoke it once, I know I did," she insists.

He looks down at her wrist, which is tattooed in her dreams too. "You did. But that was an unusual circumstance."

She sighs, looking into his apologetic blue eyes. "Pity. It's the most beautiful language."

There's a mysterious smile on his face that shows how truly old he is. "I can think of one even more beautiful."

**

She wakes up and smells Ben's aftershave and feels his warmth and sees his bright smile and thinks she understands what Castiel meant.

**

**xv. can i be close to you?**

She flies out to Rome in mid-June and by the time she lands and settles into her apartment with Lucy and Professor Costa, she has four e-mails from Ben, two of which are complaints about how he's been saddled with a 'fuckload' of paperwork and how there's a new guy in his office who likes to _wink_ at everyone. One is a short message from Samantha, who didn't have time to log in before school, and the last one just reads, 'I'm not losing you to Europe so you better e-mail often.'

**

Professor Costa prefers to work as much as she can in the mornings – from seven until maybe one or two, depending. The afternoons are for eating and exploring while the evenings involve more work.

Usually she separates from Lucy and Professor Costa, preferring to spend her afternoons to herself walking on cobble-stoned streets and revisiting cafes and bars she frequented when she was abroad.

Once a week she'll go back to the apartment and Skype with Ben, who will wake up at seven in the morning (his time) to talk with her. He's usually bleary-eyed and will sometimes doze off, but whenever she offers to go and let him sleep, he'll widen his eyes and say, "I'm awake!"

**

She attends mass in a church a few blocks away from her apartment, but sometimes they'll travel to the Vatican and attend mass for research purposes. Over the course of three months she's seen the Pope ten times.

Sometimes they'll go to Chiesa di Gesu e Maria for masses in Latin, which she thoroughly enjoys, although she's definitely one of the few people who understands everything coming out of the priest's mouth.

She still prays for her family.

**

Jude e-mails a month before Christmas that _uh so I got engaged yesterday haha? When do you come home so I can pick a date for you to be at the wedding_ and it sort of hits her that she's twenty-five – twenty-six in six months and it's feeling like a quarter-life crisis.

Ben just laughs at her. "You're getting old, woman."

She scowls at him, which makes him laugh harder. 

Worst friend ever (except he really is her best friend now).

**

What also happens a month before Christmas is that Ben, his family, and Jude have all chipped in to get her a plane ticket to Indiana for the holidays.

She cries a little when she gets the e-mail because this is her _family_ – as disjointed and random and all over the place they all are, and as much as she misses her parents everyday…she's happy. Enough so that the emptiness in her is starting to fill a little bit.

**

She arrives in New York City and stays with Jude and his fiancée Greg (same Greg from college) for two days. They're becoming more financially sound, so they take her out to dinner in nice restaurants and they go to a Broadway show.

"I'm really happy for you," Claire tells Jude while Greg is trying to hail a cab.

Jude cups her cheek with his gloved hand and just when she thinks he's about to declare something serious, he says, "Now you know this must mean I'm going to do my damndest to make sure you have a what I have because nobody deserves it more than you."

She slaps his hand away. "I'm not even thinking about that right now – let me get my PhD first."

"Love happens when you least expect it."

"Please don't start spewing Hallmark lines now that you're engaged."

"I make no promises."

**

"Say hi to Ben for me," Jude says with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

Claire rolls her eyes. " _Friends_."

**

She arrives in Indianapolis and she and Ben actually run towards each other like in a movie. Sure, they end up hugging for five minutes instead of kissing, but she doesn't care because she honestly doesn't want to let him go.

…That may be a little bit weird.

**

He sleeps in the guest room with her every night and they gravitate towards each other as they sleep.

Maybe it's to make up for the fact that they've been almost five thousand miles apart for the past few months.

**

The night before she has to fly back to Rome, she wakes up, untangles herself from Ben's hold, and heads downstairs to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

Dean is there, reading a book that looks like it belongs in the Vatican Library.

"You okay?" he asks her, not look up from his book.

She pauses. "Yeah. Just thirsty."

He looks up at her, eyes piercing her, trying to find something that isn't there. Her throat tightens because she knows whom he misses.

A nasty, tired, fed up part of her wants to ask if he even gave her and her mother a second thought about them after getting Castiel back in her father's body. If he bothered to wonder how Jimmy Novak's broken family dealt with it all, wonder how her _father_ was, trapped within his own body, engulfed by the terrifying glory of Grace. If he gave a damn, or if he only cared about getting his _friend_ back.

Everything is on the tip of her tongue, but Dean's face shifts to something tired, exhausted, drained – the lines on his face more prominent and the gray hairs more obvious than the light brown.

"I'm sorry," he says, his voice a little rough.

She looks down and swallows, nodding. 

There really isn't a point, not anymore.

( _Support one another, and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive one another. For just as the Lord has forgiven you, so also must you do._ )

**

She crawls into bed and holds Ben, trying to focus on the beating of his heart against her own.

**

She almost cries when she leaves because not seeing any of her friends ( _Ben_ ) for another six months seems like too much.

"You'll be home before you know it," he murmurs in her ear and she wonders where he means, exactly.

**

When she's back in the Rome apartment, she receives one e-mail:

_Is it really lame and pathetic that I already miss you? Because I'm totally there._

__She swallows and responds with, _I'm there too._

__

**

Months go by, a repeat of the last six months she was in Rome, except now she carries an unfamiliar weight in her heart, one she's experienced a little when she was in Berkeley and Jude was in Chicago, but this is worse – it never goes away.

**

**xvi. peaceful easy feeling.**

It's May first, a cool Wednesday morning and she's rushing to get ready for a day in the Vatican when her Italian phone rings. 

" _Pronto?_ " she answers the phone, breathless as she throws on a jacket.

" _Er…Claire?_ "

She freezes. "Ben? Are you okay, what's wrong?" she demands, scared. She only gave him this number in case she couldn't be reached on her regular phone.

" _Nothing's wrong – I just need you to let me into your apartment. I don't think the doorbell works because I've rung it twice._ "

"Yeah, we've been badgering the landlord to get it fixed," she starts before she stops herself. "Wait, you're not…"

" _Fuck yeah, I am. Come greet me, you terrible hostess. This is no way to treat a guest._ "

She hangs up the phone and runs out of the apartment, down the stairs, and throws open the door. And for a tense moment as she stares at him (his glorious, perfect, wonderful face) and he stares back, she wants to kiss him because there's no way a hug can _possibly_ translate how she feels right now.

But she closes her eyes and tries to breathe because _no_ , that's not right.

Ben sighs, crowds into her space and wraps his arms around her, his face hiding in the crook of her neck. She immediately responds by running her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck in soothing, repeating motions.

"I'm going to pass out, that flight was long as fuck, but I just have a week here and I want to spend pretty much all of it with you."

"I have to work," she says quietly. "But I can leave after one. You can sleep for a couple of hours."

He hums and kisses her neck and Jude may have had a point during Christmas.

**

She rushes to the Vatican and when she explains to her professor what happened, she says, "Take the afternoon and the rest of the week off."

Claire gapes at her. "I couldn't –"

"Yes, you can. The work can wait, he's only here for a week. It's okay."

She almost kisses her too, so maybe there's something wrong with her today.

**

At twelve she leaves, rushing to take the express bus to Termini before hopping on another bus to take her back to the apartment, breathless and skin buzzing.

She tackles him awake and he flips her onto her back with one strong arm and she laughs loudly and freely.

**

She takes him to some of the popular spots – the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, and they stop in Campo dei Fiori for a drink before dinner. She teaches him how to order their drinks, but he butchers it up and she has to save him.

"I can perform an exorcism in ten seconds flat, but I can't order a damn drink in Italian," he sighs, shaking his head.

"Bet I can do it faster than you."

"Okay, no, just because you're fluent in Latin doesn't mean shit. I've been practicing since I was ten."

They try to outdo the other for the next fifteen minutes, no doubt scaring half the people sitting around them.

**

They take a bus all the way to Trastevere to go to a pizzeria that she knows Ben will love and the wine she has with her food makes her a little fuzzy, something swooping low in her stomach when she watches him laugh.

When they're outside, walking to the bus stop, she takes off her sandals to switch into flats. As she slips them on, he takes the sandals from her, the straps hanging off his fingers, and once she's got her second shoe on, she sands on her toes and kisses him.

He tastes of mozzarella and tomato sauce and beer and his mouth doesn't move.

She falls back on her heels and feels cold, wishing desperately she was sober and that he was five thousand miles away again until he reaches out and curls a hand around the back of her neck, pulling her in for a brief kiss.

When he pulls away, he says in a quiet voice, "I haven't been with anyone since Christmas."

Claire knows Ben, better than most, she thinks, and there's one thing about Ben Braeden that makes him doubt his mother's honesty, about Dean maybe actually being his biological father instead of a random person, and it's this: he's adopted almost every philosophy of Dean's. When he's hungry – he eats. When he wants to drink – he drinks. When he wants sex – he has sex.

So his not being with anyone isn't a pity thing, or something he hasn't been getting even though he wants it, she knows that.

This is as close to an admission as she's going to get.

They lace their hands together and head back to her apartment.

**

He holds her in bed and she rests her head on his chest when he says, "Did you know that soul mates actually exist? Cupids mark the hearts of couples in Enochian, the ones that are meant to be."

She taps her fingers against his shoulder. "Did Castiel tell you that?"

"I overheard Dean asking Cas about it – about us. I think seeing you hurts him sometimes."

Claire hums and doesn't say anything else (she's known for a while). "He didn't answer Dean – he knew you were listening in."

"Probably," Ben admits, resting his chin on top of her head.

She doesn't know if that's the case for them – one second she thinks it's obvious, but then the next she's not sure.

But maybe it's not limited like that – maybe Heaven has changed the way it goes, that soul mates aren't limited to romantic relationships.

She rather likes the idea of everyone having marks on their hearts, destined to have at least one person to share life with.

**

She wakes up with his hand under the back of his shirt, resting hotly on her skin and she _happy_.

Eventually his hold tightens on her as he wakes up, brown eyes hazy but bright, and smiles at her.

She kisses him and doesn't stop.

**

They laugh after they catch their breath – it was actually the most awkward sex she's ever had and she bets it's the same for him; it took a lot of fumbling for them to figure out how to touch each other and the fantastic, perfect moments were few and far between, but she thinks this is the best she's ever felt.

He's looking at her in awe a few minutes later and he's playing with her left hand, paying special attention to her left finger.

 _Maybe one day_ , she agrees, squeezing his hand. 

"Tell me something that you haven't told me before," he says, rolling onto his stomach and resting his weight on his forearms, the muscles on his back lovely in the morning sun.

She curls her hands into the sheet covering her chest as she thinks. "My dad used to tell me that my birthday was St. James The Just's Feast Day, that he was a leader in bringing Christianity to Jerusalem after Jesus' death – the first bishop and everything," she starts, looking up at the ceiling and then back at his face. "It wasn't until later when I found out it wasn't just his feast day – it was also St. Philip the Apostle's. I guess my dad didn't mention it because it didn't mean as much, given that I was born in St. James' in Pontiac. He thought that meant I would be blessed or lucky somehow," she shrugs. "But as I was researching St. Philip, I found out he was the patron saint of pastry chefs and I just. It stuck for so long. I keep thinking about dropping out of school and opening a bakery somewhere."

Ben chuckles, running a hand through her hair. "Can you even bake?"

She shrugs. "A little, but. I'm not a prodigy or anything. I wasn't given that gift."

He shrugs back. "Maybe you just have to work at it."

She snorts, slapping a hand to her face. "Can you imagine just…my getting a PhD in religious studies and then opening my own bakery and dedicating my life to making the most delicious pastries?"

"I've heard and seen weirder."

She supposes they both have. "I have yet to drop that idea, so it can be considered for a while longer."

"What would your dad think of it?" he asks softly.

She looks straight into his eyes and grins. "He'd love it. He had a soft spot for Napoleons."

**

They walk around the city all day, Ben adding colorful commentary for everything – stopping in cafés for cappuccinos ("What's the point of having this – you might as well throw back espresso and call it a day – why drag it out?") and gelaterias for gelato ("Um, I'm never leaving this city again this is _way_ better than ice cream.").

She introduces him to new dishes at dinner and they hold hands once it's cool enough and when they come back to the apartment, they try again and she knows she's going to have the best time figuring out how they work together.

**

On her birthday, Ben tries to find her something affordable, but it's nearly impossible and it takes almost the entire day.

The single-pearl necklace that rests on her clavicle is truly lovely, though.

**

Sunday morning, he asks if they can go to mass.

Her eyes widen. "Why?"

He shrugs, not looking away. "I've never been. I'm curious. It's important to you."

"It's going to be in Italian – you won't understand anything."

"Do you not want me to go?" he asks, not unkindly.

"It's not – I just think going to one in English may be easier."

"I already know the basics of Roman Catholicism. I just want to see what you get out of it. If you don't mind."

So she takes him to mass. Her hold on his hand is tight when the priest says, " _Nel nome del Padre e del Figlio e dello Spirito Santo,_ " and remains so as she sings in prayer and spends a moment of silence in prayer for her parents.

When everyone stands to head toward the front, she whispers in his ear, "Receiving Communion. I'll be back."

"Is that where you eat the cookie and drink the wine?" he asks.

She bites her bottom lip to try to not laugh. "It's not as delicious as a cookie, unfortunately. It's more like a tasteless wafer."

He chuckles low in his throat, pinching her side playfully as she walks out to the aisle. When it's her turn to receive Communion, the priest gives her a smile with squinty eyes and she thinks he likes Ben.

Poor Ben, who's the only one left behind, receiving confused looks by almost everyone.

After she slides in next to him, she kisses him on the cheek.

**

She comes with him to the airport and he hugs her for a long time. "You're staying in Indiana for at least a few weeks, right? I'm moving into my new apartment when I get back. You'll just have to deal with Loopy Luke."

"He's _harmless_ ," she insists.

"Just wait until he floods the laundry room for the third time. You'd think he'd know how to do laundry at this age."

He kisses her briefly and she thinks that maybe they should've spent more time kissing than hugging and talking, but she's content as she waves goodbye to him until he disappears in the crowd.

One more month and then she's home, at least for a little bit.

(The thought of home makes her smile the entire train ride back to Termini.)

**

The month goes back a lot quicker than she thought it would. She focuses on her research and tries to focus on enjoying Rome, since this will probably be the last time she's here for another couple of years.

On the last night, she, Professor Costa, and Rachel go out for a nice dinner to celebrate the work they've done, the night perfect and the stars shining above them and she stares at them for a little longer, smiling.

She feels a small gust of wind against the palm of her hand and almost laughs.

**

**xvii. both a beginning and an end.**

She spends three weeks in Indianapolis with Ben, helping him with the final touches of the apartment. They're scarily domestic and have a routine by the end of the first week and it's going to be hard going back to California alone.

Two years of it – she's not sure if she wants to stay in California after she gets her PhD and he's not sure if he wants to switch departments. It's a long time and if she thinks about it too much, she gets scared, but she has faith in them.

Now she's back in Stanford, driving down the 101 from a specialty grocery store (she's going to start teaching herself how to really bake today), listening to The Eagles and sun is shining down on her, wind blowing through her hair through open windows. She has people who love her, people she loves back, and she thinks the other night she dreamed of the Enochian sigil for the Novak family, something that Castiel created. She has it drawn on her other wrist, considering on making it permanent.

_As I pulled away slowly, feelin' so holy, God knows I was feelin' alive…_

__" _And now the sun's comin' up,_ " she sings along, feeling her chest fill with so many different feelings (happiness and excitement and nostalgia and a little sadness) and there's nothing divine about the space in her slowly becoming nothing more than echo – it's all her doing. 

**finis.**

**Author's Note:**

> Part names and lyrics are from these songs respectively: (i) "Beginnings" – Chicago, (ii) "The Beginning is the End is the Beginning" – Smashing Pumpkins, (iii) "Masterpiece Theatre Part 3" – Marianas Trench, "Desperado" – The Eagles, (iv) "Better Days" – The Goo Goo Dolls, (v) "Shattered" – Trading Yesterday, (vi) "Shake It Out" – Florence + The Machine, (vii) "Brothers on a Hotel Bed" – Death Cab for Cutie, "Already Gone" – The Eagles, (viii) "Even if it Kills Me" – Motion City Soundtrack, (ix) "Marchin On" – OneRepublic, (x) "Good Life" – OneRepublic, (xi + xii) "What Sarah Said" – Death Cab for Cutie, (xiii) "Wasted Time" – The Eagles, (xiv) "Friend Like You" – Joshua Radin, (xv) "Bloom" – The Paper Kites, (xvi) "Peaceful Easy Feeling" – The Eagles, (xvii) "Brothers on a Hotel Bed" – Death Cab for Cutie, "Ol' 55" – Tom Waits.


End file.
